Method and apparatus for providing customized selection of audio content over the internet using declared and behavior profile information

A server, comprising:

• a memory containing instructions;
• processing circuitry programmed using the instructions and configured to:
• communicate over a network with a user device, and
• receive a declared user profile associated with the user to determine a default setting, the default setting specifying user preferences provided by the user and under what conditions online activity of the user derived from a cookie is used to provide customized advertisements based on the received declared user profile,
• wherein the online activity of the user and the declared user profile are used to retrieve customized advertisements for display on the user device unless overridden by the declared user profile.

A server, comprising:

• circuitry configured to:
• communicate over a network with a remotely located user device,
• receive a declared profile and a behavior profile indicating online activity information from the remotely located user device, the declared profile containing user preferences and data specifying whether the behavior profile is used for retrieving customized advertisements,
• process the data to enable determination of whether the behavior profile is used to retrieve customized advertisements for transmission to the remotely located user device,
• determine, based on the processing, whether the behavior profile information is used to retrieve customized advertisements for transmission to the remotely located user device, and
• retrieve customized advertisements for transmission to the remotely located user device using the declared profile and the behavior profile when the determination determines that the behavior profile is used to retrieve customized advertisements for transmission to the remotely located user device and using only the declared profile when the determination determines that the behavior profile is not used to retrieve customized advertisements for transmission to the remotely located user device.

A server system, comprising:

• one or more databases, the one or more databases including an advertising database;
• and
• one or more processors, at least one of the one or more processors programmed using instructions stored in a memory and configured to:
• communicate with a remotely located user device over a network to receive information derived from a cookie that indicates previous online activity of a user associated with the remotely located user device, and declared profile information of the user associated with the remotely located user device, the declared profile information including data indicating whether the information is used to retrieve advertising content, and
• retrieve a subset of advertising content for transmission to the remotely located user device based on the information derived from the cookie and the declared profile information, when the data indicates that the information derived from the cookie is used to retrieve advertising content.